Category: Uncategorized

“Great graphics will keep us entertained for a couple of minutes; it is story that holds us in our seats.” – John Lasseter, pg. xii

“There’s nothing you can do about where the pieces are. It’s only your next move that matters.” – pg. 49

“Sometimes there comes a point when you jump not because you feel ready or are sure that you’ll make it across the chasm, but because the conditions are forcing you off the edge.” – pg. 89

“If we are too focused on function and performance, we may wind up wondering if we ever truly lived. If, on the other hand, we are so focused on engaging our passions, we may become frustrated by lack of momentum. [It’s] a dance between order and freedom. Efficiency and artistry.” – pg. 236-244

“Life promises nothing but death. While we are here, […] I want to stare at the lights. I want to participate.” – pg. 196

“Stand-up […] had grown up and discovered what it was really about in the first place: A person standing onstage, opening up their brain and showing you what’s inside.” – pg. 249

“If you focus on the things that connect you, you can stay unbothered by the things that society says should tear you apart.” – pg. 284

“What other people say about you only matters if you believe what they are saying is true.” – pg. 18

“It doesn’t matter how many people say no. All you need is one person to say yes.” – pg. 23

“Sometimes people with the most gifts have the easiest time throwing them in the trash. Don’t be a product of your environment. Make your environment be a product of you.” – Jane Fonda, pg. 27

“I mostly wait for opportunities to present themselves, or I hustle to create opportunities.” – pg. 83

“I consider being in my company of high value.” – pg. 103

“Sitting around and thinking of all the people who don’t love you or don’t want to hang out with you diminishes your own light. Focus on where the light and love come from and park yourself in front of that. There are many moments in life when your own light is all you need.” – pg. 104

“Light and darkness very consistently follow each other around, like partners.” – pg. 139

“As long as you never lower your standards, your person is coming.” – pg. 151

“No one makes anything happen that you yourself aren’t already working toward.” – pg. 192

“No one is unrecoverable. You can change your life anytime you want.” – pg. 212

“Be honest about who you are, and let people decide if they like you.” – pg. 225

“The most important metric of success is how willing you are to share it with others.” – pg. 290

“This book is not about how sometimes the greatest challenges are blessings in disguise. This book is about how sometimes in life everything you have worked for comes crashing down and the only way forward is to rebuild it into something better.” – pg. vii

“I was perfect. Until I wasn’t.” – pg. 10

“Even if you know you are the best in the world, you must be aware that someone is out there trying to take that away from you.” – pg. 48

“When you have trained your entire life for something, […] you feel an overwhelming sense of calm despite your pounding heart.” – pg. 77

“Times like this is what the show is for, to showcase and repackage people going through crisis.” – Lorne Michaels on SNL, pg. 90

“I wasn’t fighting to win; I was fighting not to lose.” – pg. 106

“Losing set me on a path to happiness. It forced me to step back, to reassess and reprioritize.” – pg. 115

“No matter what I had achieved, it was never enough. I dangled the promise of ‘this will be the thing that makes it all worthwhile’ in front of myself like a carrot but instead of ever finding happiness, I only felt more and more unfulfilled. […] There was never going to come a point, no matter how incredible the achievement, where I could say, ‘OK, I did it!’ and just be content in the afterglow forever. I needed to be happy with who I am and the life I had. Not the things I did.” – pg. 264

“We are much more than the tiny boxes that we put ourselves in. […] So much more than the labels we feel forced to use to identify who we are. We are so much more than our jobs. So much more than our worst days. Than our best days. Than any single moment.” – pg. 269

“The present was everything I wanted to be. And it was finally enough.” – pg. 270

“It’s impossible to get everything you ever want in life, but trying is the best part anyway.” – pg. 270

“If there’s a place that feels like home – that you can go back to and laugh with your friends – consider yourself lucky. And I do.” – Amy Poehler, 10/11/25

“Where you come from is gone. Where you thought you were going to was never there. And nothing outside of you can give you any place. In yourself, right now, is the only place you’ve got.” – Jon Landau, referencing Flannery O’Connor.

“I was unknown, and I had nothing to lose if I messed up. There is so much freedom in being anonymous.” – pg. 54

“I like the work. I like the practicing. That has more authenticity and value than anything else.” – pg. 124

“You have to test your boundaries, to find out who you are, how you want to live.” – pg. 186

“In order to be creative, you have to have room for play in your schedule.” – pg. 208

“I have a lot of soul-searching to do. It’s going to be a process. I’m already enjoying it.” – pg. 265

“Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else.” – pg. 174

“[My mom] passed on to me the love of language, an immense respect for words and their power.” – pg. 9

“[I had] the eternal dilemma of longing to belong, but not liking to belong.” – pg. 140

“I wasn’t using my mind to produce external evidence of my inner state.” – pg. 140

“Some day you will release what you have down inside of you and it will be listened to and heard. […] Insist on being yourself. Don’t let anyone change you or silence you.” – Mary Carlin, pg. 144

“I was stumbling across the difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.” – pg. 146

“I’m going to be the person on the outside that I’ve been on the inside my whole life.” – pg. 152

“I’ve always liked the idea of having a shelf for my stuff. Tangible proofs of the things I’ve done.” – pg. 158

“As long as you have observations to make, […] you will always have material. People have always asked me: ‘Don’t you ever think you might run out of ideas? Don’t you ever worry about not having anything to say anymore?’ Occasionally that does flash through your mind, because it’s a natural human impulse to think in terms of beginnings and endings. The truth is, I can’t run out of ideas – not as long as I keep getting new information and I keep processing it.” – pg. 161

“It’s still one of my favorite pieces, if for no other reason than the grief it caused people who deserve to have grief caused to them.” – pg. 162, about Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television

“I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.” – pg. 164

“I hate to behave in clichés.” – pg. 220

“The noisier the culture becomes, the stronger your voice has to be.” – pg. 236

“The boilerplate definition of satire is taking on the mentality of your enemy […] and taking it to extremes in an ingenious way.” – pg. 261

“Things have a way of telling me when they want to be done.” – pg. 263

“I sort things out well. I place things in my world where they ought to be mentally as well as physically. In fact I move my physical world around in order for my mental world to be a little easier to look at and work with.” – pg. 272

“The creation of material is the ultimate freedom.” – pg. 280

“Some of the most impactful lessons I’ve ever received, I’ve had to learn in spite of myself.” – pg. ix

“Comedy is an extension of intelligence. It’s hard to be really funny if you’re not really smart.” – pg. 20

“It’s impossible to be unhappy when you’re grateful.” – pg. 42

“Being good at something allows you to be calm in a storm.” – pg. 69

“Advice at its best is one person’s limited perspective of the infinite possibilities before you.” – pg. 99

“Living is the journey from not knowing to knowing. […] Life is learning.” – pg. 114

“I would drop the mic, but I need it for the next chapter.” – pg. 134

“Choosing the city you live in is as important as choosing your life partner.” – pg. 149

“It’s respectable to lose to the universe. It’s a tragedy to lose to yourself.” – pg. 159

“The universe is not logical, it’s magical.” – pg. 177

“Things are always impossible, right up until they’re not!” – Quincy Jones, pg. 182

“Don’t block your blessings.” – Gigi, pg. 183

“Whats true about movies is also true about life: You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are.” – pg. 212

“There are only two human problems: (1) knowing what you want, but not knowing how to get it; and (2) not knowing what you want.” – Stephen Covey, pg. 213

“We knew what we were looking for. Now, we just had to go find it and convince whoever had it to give it to us.” – pg. 215

“If quitting is an option, you’ll never finish anything hard. The only way an imperfect mind can be forced to achieve is by removing all of its other options.” – pg. 237

“The human mind is a storytelling machine. […] From the beginning of time, humans have used character and story to make sense of the mystery of life. We need our lives to mean something.” – pg. 269

“To place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself is a recipe for misery.” – pg. 357

“One of the central and most critical tenets of filmmaking is ‘know your ending.’ When you understand the emotional, philosophical, and moral conclusion of your movie, you can better craft everything that leads up to it.” – pg. 401

“If I die, I’m not even gonna know. So the real question is, how do I want to live?” – pg. 412

“I decided to work hard to be excellent.” – pg. 86

“I wanted my life to mean something, but I didn’t know what that was.” – pg. 103

“Sometimes you need to take a huge step away from your situation to see it clearly.” – pg. 118

“If you’re not confident in yourself, then how can someone else be?” – Josh Lawson, pg. 162

“When I asked [Ruth Cracknell] if she got nervous to perform, she said that each thing she’d done in her career was like a brick and as the years pile up, so do the bricks.” – pg. 237